At Night in the Surf
I follow the figure in front of me down the beach, a silhouette barely darker than the horizon. I can’t see him well, but I sense his proximity and maintain a close but consistent distance away, which prepares me for the steps that require additional care. Though we both wear headlamps, neither are in use and, in the absence of a clear visual of the beach, my hearing distinguishes the type of ground we’re walking on. I hear his boots softly squish over sand, then crunch and grind on small stones, and then slide and squeak on top of large, seaweed-covered ledges. Then, a new sound: boots entering water. I stop, look up, and realize that we’ve reached our destination. This is where I will fish. At least for now.
I was raised a daytime angler. As a boy, I was taught by my father that when it comes to fishing, one goes to bed early so he can then get up early and catch the morning bite. Staying up for a bite was also in play but concluded promptly at dark for the previously mentioned reason. As I grew older and my fishing gained independence, “early” and “late” stretched into “earlier” and “later” but I still conducted the business part of my angling during daylight. Then I befriended an angler whose approach fell far from my own; an approach based more on feel than feedback, more intuition than imitation, more consciousness than coincidence—an angling approach with higher stakes than simple recreation: night fishing.
“Remember the map I drew?” my friend asks. “This is the shallow boulder garden in the northeast corner.”
Earlier in the day, he’d sketched a 10-or-so-acre section of shoreline with no fewer than 20 landmarks and areas to fish. I tried to recall the specifics of this particular waypoint and looked into the dark for clues but was given none in return. The task was much more straightforward on paper.
“Let me see your fly,” he says, and I show him. “That’s fine. The tide just turned, so the current is going to pick up soon. Swing your fly through all these currents and seams. As the water drops, wade further out so you can fish more of the boulder garden.”
“Got it,” I say, confidence imperceptible.
“I’ll be over there.” He points into the night. “Yell if you need me.”
He walks away, the sounds of his steps eventually overtaken by the soft crashes of waves and the ocean flowing over the rocks I am about to fish. I take a hesitant step into the water, and another, my feet sliding over the bottom to make sure it doesn’t fall out from underneath me. A few more steps and my right foot bumps into a boulder. I trace its outline with my boot and keep moving. Now knee-deep, I unhook my fly from a rod guide and flip it into the water. It disappears.
We’d decided that I would fly fish, even though he was positive that it was a less-productive method for this area. Our reasoning was that I’d be better off fishing a spot I didn’t know with a technique I did know, as opposed to not knowing either. In any case, there’s no debating that my angling companion and I are compromised. Nevertheless, I begin. At first it feels like everything is inverted, like the world has turned upside down, and I’m fishing in a reflected ocean—as if I’m a mirror-image of myself, casting and fishing with my off-hand. Thankfully, the rod in my hand is not a new tool. I start short and am soon sending 60 feet of line comfortably into the unknown and unseen. What the fly does when it gets there is much less clear to me.
To a degree, all fishing during the day is sight fishing in that you can see your fly, plug, or bait. You can see what it looks like in the water, see where it lands, and sometimes see when a fish follows it. At night in the surf, however, sight is replaced by feel and the learning curve that charts challenges and rewards is much steeper, and reaches greater magnitudes. Without the benefit of sight, I’m required to visualize my fly in the water, not just what it looks like but how it’s moving and where. It’s difficult at first because it’s new, but soon I’m no longer thinking about doing it, I’m just doing it. With no visual cues to tell me when a fish is near, I’m forced to fish each cast as if it is being followed. In my mind, I see and believe in each and every presentation.
As for my friend, he’s doing what he knows best—surfcasting at this specific spot, and after a while, I hear him call my name. I turn and yell in the direction he’d pointed, and he responds from somewhere else.
“Doin’ good?” he asks.
My response is swallowed by the night, but I acknowledge that I am indeed doing just fine.
Whereas fishing during the day sometimes makes time feel fleeting, at night, time not only slows, it seems to get lost. Instead of running a losing race against the rising sun, we are drafting off the moon’s soft glow, riding the night’s camouflage and its intoxicating, comforting, and liberating effect on the fish. I know they’re happy out there and I’m faithful that if my fly swings in front of one, it will annihilate it. Why wouldn’t it? Anticipation may hold at night, but it never wanes. Senses are in overdrive and even slight changes in current or wind are cause for concern and curiosity. A sudden inconsistency in the white noise of the wash raises an eyebrow and the hairs on the back of my neck.
“Let’s move,” I hear from behind me. I reel in, and while doing so, consider that I have no idea how long he’s been standing there.
By now my steps are surer and my eyes have fully adjusted to the color spectrum that spreads before us. Blues, purples, grays, and pitch black are the palette of this evening’s painter, and our silhouettes slide in and among them as we make our way to another spot. I imagine us traversing my friend’s hand-drawn map and I’m now able to match his descriptions and depictions to what’s actually out here—a visual translation made possible only after having been submerged in the scene.
We arrive at our next spot and drop our gear on a rocky beach. I know things have changed since we started fishing—the tide, moonlight, etc.—but why we’re here, now, I understand only in concept, not by any evidence. An alignment of conditions is critical, as always, but instead of waiting for a certain tide or particular wind to coincide with daybreak or dusk, my friend has charted these variables’ intersection with the dead of night. He begins fishing while I try to take in the new surroundings.
Intentionally, I haven’t checked the time. I thought it would be amusing to lose track of it, but now that I’m out here and have also lost track of place, I’m not sure how it would help me, really. I do know that I’m tired. No surprise, as I haven’t been awake at this hour since I don’t know when. Fishing at night is habitual in the sense that it doesn’t come easy at first and requires the breaking of a competing habit to even engage in—sleeping, namely. Or, sleeping during normal hours. But, like going to the gym or learning an instrument, at some point along the way, the activity loses its novelty and becomes even more than a routine, it becomes a practice. Going night fishing just once is harsh on the body and the mind; that’s where I’m at now. But the more frequently it’s repeated, the easier it gets and the harder it is to stop, until it’s just what you do; that’s where my friend is.
I decide to take a break and see what I can learn by watching him. Reclining against a smooth rock, legs crossed and hands behind my head, I watch him fish. Each cast is precise, a foot this way or that, and his retrieves alternate between reeling, back-reeling, and letting his lure rise and swing in the current. It is clear that he is doing something much different than what I was doing with my fly, controlling his presentation in a way that I wasn’t and likely can’t. I recognize that this is a function of both his equipment and his understanding of this place. It’s said that the brighter the light, the more darkness you can see. In my case, the inverse has become true: the dark has illuminated what I do not know.
Suddenly, I perceive a change in his posture, and he sets the hook with his entire body. The rod arches into the night sky, line pointing into the abyss. Somewhere out there, a striped bass has been hooked. My friend takes off down the beach in pursuit and I’m following him once again, keeping my distance as before, now so as not to interfere. I watch the fight with no idea where the fish is until my friend kneels to land it.
“Wanna see what they look like?”
The blues, purples, grays, and pitch black of the night swirl yet again, as if slowly stirred together in a paint bucket. And in the middle of it all is me, my friend, and his fish.
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Source: https://onthewater.com/at-night-in-the-surf
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